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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Tech Talk with Jess Kelly.
With Renault's award-winning hybrid and full electric lineup, where style meets tech.
Rethink Renault. This is News Talk.
Yeah, you're very welcome along to Tech Talk. This is Jess Kelly with you here on News Talk.
Chapter 2: What news did Apple announce regarding Tim Cook?
Coming up over the next hour, we'll look back at Tim Cook's tenure as the CEO of Apple and take a closer look at the man who's taking over from the beginning of September. Emmett Ryan will join me to chat about the shoe company that's now an AI company, as you do. And as ever, I'll answer your tech questions.
If you want to get in touch, you can drop me an email to techtalkatnewstalk.com or you'll get me on Instagram at jesskelleynt. A little bit later in the show, we will hear from YouTube's Global Head of Health once again about some new features that are being added to Google Family Link. But I want to start this week with that news from Apple.
So on Tuesday morning, we all here in Ireland woke up to the news from Apple that Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO. He's going to remain with the company on the board, but a new man takes the reins from the beginning of September. And this is a big news story, not only in the world of tech, but also wider life because Apple is integrated into so many aspects of of our lives now.
It's no longer just phones and tablets and whatever. If you've got an iPhone, you might be using Apple Pay, you might have iCloud, you might watch stuff on Apple TV Plus. It really has diversified in terms of its offering over the last number of years. And I'm joined now by Ciara O'Brien of the Irish Times to look back at Tim Cook's time with the company.
Ciara, it's always great to chat with you. Thank you so much. As I said there, this is a significant deal And I know some people were shocked by it, but there were a lot of us who had kind of seen the writing on the wall for the last wee while.
I think anybody who's really been watching Apple for a while, you know, it's not really that much of a surprise that Tim Cook has decided to step aside because there's been rumours about this for a good while. I mean, you've got to remember as well, Tim Cook is 65 years of age. And while he has said he would be happy to continue on at Apple for... the foreseeable future.
You know, I mean, there's always a shelf life to these things. And he has been, he's been kind of at the head of Apple since he took over from Steve Jobs in 2011. And if you remember back that far, like 15 years ago, it was a much quicker transition because although Tim Cook had been kind of like the heir apparent for a while, it was ill health that forced Steve Jobs to step down.
And it was only, I think, 42 days between him resigning as chief executive and recommending that Tim Cook be named as his replacement to the board of Apple.
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Chapter 3: What has been Tim Cook's impact on Apple's growth?
It was only 42 days between that happening and him dying of cancer. So, you know, it was a much quicker kind of transition, I suppose, for most people. This, you know, it's September 1st is kind of the deadline. So Tim Cook will do WWDC. And then I suppose when we're coming into the usual round of, Apple launches and iPhone launches in September, we'll see a new chief executive take over.
As I said, if you've been watching Apple for a while, this won't be a massive surprise. John Ternus, who is Apple's new chief executive, he has been kind of at the forefront of a lot of the hardware launches for some time, and he's been playing kind of an increasingly...
large role in apple's kind of product roadmap um and he's been with apple for 25 years already so you know he is kind of you know he's a he's he's part of of this was the apple machine um and he's been heading up kind of their engineering the hardware engineering department for some time as well so you know it's a surprise i suppose that it's happened now but not really that much of a surprise
Yeah, and I think we might talk through some of the wins and losses in a few minutes, but I remember when Tim Cook took over and although I was barely reporting on tech at the time, a lot of the conversations that I was reading online were, who is this guy? He doesn't have the same charisma as Steve Jobs. He's not the same innovative brain as Steve Jobs, but he does...
have an entirely different skill set that did transform Apple. Can you remember back then the initial reception to his first iPhone launch?
I can remember, actually, like yourself, when he took over, I remember people saying, you know, steady, reliable, safe pair of hands. But, yeah, no Steve Jobs. Now, nobody was ever... I mean, you don't get two Steve Jobs, do you?
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Chapter 4: How did Tim Cook's leadership differ from Steve Jobs'?
Like, he was a unique kind of... He was a unique person. And we also have to remember as well that Steve Jobs had a very good team around him, you know, when it came to kind of, you know, designing products and coming up with all these ideas. You know, he...
came up with some of them he you know they perfected them you know it was not solely down to one person apple is a huge kind of collaborative effort and apple was never about one person but he was such a figurehead when he stepped down it was a massive deal and obviously when he died a few weeks later it was there was a huge hole left in the company and And it was big shoes for Tim Cook to fill.
And yes, I do remember very, very vaguely now, because it was 15 years ago when he did his first kind of iPhone launch. All the focus on was, was it going to be as magical as the kind of magic that Steve Jobs brought to the whole thing? And the thing is, I don't think he ever needed to be another Steve Jobs. As you said, he had the skill set all of his own.
And I think if you had brought somebody in trying to be another version of Steve Jobs, it would have fallen flat anyway, because you just can't replicate that. And under Apple, under Tim Cook, we've seen Apple go from strength to strength. You've seen the iPhone, the reach of the iPhone, the reach of Apple products become increasingly large globally.
You've seen the company become, first of all, a $1 trillion company. Now it's worth $4 trillion. It's kind of vying with Nvidia and companies of that ilk in terms of who's the most valuable tech company in the world. Apple is huge and he leaves it in a very...
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Chapter 5: What are the major product innovations under Tim Cook?
good position. And he's not really leaving either because he's becoming the executive chairman. He's becoming chairman. He will still be around. It's not as if he's cutting and running away from the company. He will still be there. So there's a very kind of a gentle transition that's been happening for some time and will continue to happen for months to come.
It's not going to be, I suppose, like the sharp shock there was between Steve Jobs saying, you know, the time has come for me to where I can no longer do this job to the best of my ability. Basically, because he was so sick at that point that he needed to step back. That was very much a short, sharp shock for people.
Yeah. One of the things, and we actually, just a few weeks ago on the show, we're looking back at 50 years of Apple and the story of Apple and Steve Jobs leaving and coming back and slashing a lot of the products and streamlining it. Whereas what Tim Cook has actually done was he's diversified it, as you correctly said, you know, he's solidified, he's added to the valuation.
But a lot of that is because he diversified the brand by introducing things like the AirPods, the Apple Watch, Apple TV Plus, Apple Pay. Like when you think about the transformation that's happened in 15 years, over the last 15 years, there has been a significant amount of development from the company.
There has. And look, Apple would have had a fairly strong product roadmap. The challenge, I think, now is going to be what's next. Because look, the iPhone for a long time was the driver of growth at Apple. And a lot of stuff that has come after that has kind of hung on the iPhone as well. So like the Apple Watch, I mean, you can only use it if you have an iPhone.
You can't use it with other devices. You can't use it with an Android phone. AirPods work best with... with an iPhone and a Mac and all of those devices and an Apple Watch, you know, you can use them with other things, but, you know, everything works much more seamlessly. And the idea is obviously that you get hooked into this ecosystem.
All of those services like Apple TV and Apple Fitness, obviously iCloud, iCloud Plus, they all hinged initially at first anyway on having some sort of Apple device. And I think, you know, it... I suppose it's the strength of the ecosystem that has kind of hooked people into Apple and kept them going. But now we're kind of at the point where people are hanging on to smartphones for longer.
So there isn't that same kind of compulsion to upgrade your phone every year as people would have had in the past because they wanted the latest and greatest features.
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Chapter 6: Who is John Ternus and what will his role be at Apple?
We're kind of topped out now and a lot of it is software. which is where we come into the whole AI thing, which I think is going to be one of the biggest challenges for John Ternus going forward, because Apple has kind of sat back a little bit and let others take the lead as such.
But, you know, Google has developed its AI, obviously OpenAI, Anthropic, they've all been developing their own AI systems. And Apple has essentially, I suppose... taken a bit of a slower approach to AI. We've seen stuff like, I mean, I was there a couple of years ago when they were talking about Apple intelligence.
We're coming up to WWDC now in June where hopefully we might hear something about the smarter Siri that's been delayed because that's what people want. People want the useful things. Yeah. And I think that's the smarter theory is one of the things that people have been really kind of pushing for. And the fact that Apple hasn't delivered it yet is a bit of a, I suppose, a black spot.
When it comes to hardware, I think... I think, you know, we've seen recently, say, the introduction of the MacBook Neo, which is actually a really nice device. It's very well made. You know, it's less expensive than a MacBook Air. It's more of a gentle introduction to the Mac ecosystem, but it doesn't feel cheap.
And, you know, obviously, John Ternus would have been involved in the development of MacBooks.
that product uh we've seen them introduce their own silicon move away from intel which was a gamble at the time that seems to have paid off um and it's kind of you know you kind of say what's next because look apple has created i suppose product categories in the past you know like with the ipad it's kind of you know it made it its own um
The Vision Pro, I suppose, is the one kind of stumbling block because while a lot of people got very enthusiastic over it at the start, the cost of it is a huge thing.
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Chapter 7: What challenges does Apple face with its new leadership?
The availability of content, because one will drive the other. If the content is there, people will buy the product. If people are buying the product, the content will be made for it, so the apps will come, the whole ecosystem will develop itself, as we've seen in the past. However...
Vision Pro is kind of, you know, being touted as, I suppose, one of the black spots for Apple in recent years because it hasn't done, I suppose, it hasn't run away with a category as people would have expected. Now, you know, we could be looking at augmented reality glasses similar to the meta tie up that they have with Ray-Ban.
And maybe some of the lessons that they've learned from Vision Pro will come into play there. And that will be a more accessible product, I think, because there's very few people that can drop a few thousand on basically the first generation of a product that may or may not stick around, you know, and that doesn't have, I suppose, the apps and the use there that...
People really need to spend that amount of money on what is essentially a virtual reality headset. You can call it spatial computing. You can call it augmented reality, whatever. You're basically slapping on a headset. I've seen people wearing them in public. I wouldn't do it myself. Well, you know, I've seen one person wearing one in public and it was, to be honest, it was people stared.
Nobody wants to look weird. But, you know, this is going to be the challenge now, coming up with these new product categories that will drive growth into the future. Apple has a solid base, you know, but it's... it's not just, is it enough to have a solid base anymore?
Is it, you know, there's always, investors are always looking for more, you know, they're kind of at the whim of the markets now, you know, where when they launch something new, it can decrease their share price. You know, that's the kind of, that's what you're looking at now. And there is a bit of pressure there, I suppose.
particularly for somebody from a product background like John Ternus, to come up with something that is going to kind of propel Apple for the next 10, 15 years in the same way that the iPhone did. Now, that's a tall order.
It is a tall order. But I think as we've been talking about on the show over the last few months with John Reilly from TheEffect.net, like when you look at what some of the Chinese manufacturers are doing now with smartphones in terms of the foldable, the flippable, The battery capacity, like there is still room for innovation with the smartphone alone.
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Chapter 8: How has Apple's product strategy evolved in recent years?
And then you get into the realm of creating new categories. So there's definitely a space for growth in terms of the product innovation. But also here, and I think this is an area where Tim Cook...
like it or loathe it, was very strong, was in terms of navigating difficult periods, be it COVID, be it uncertainty over tariffs, a tricky and volatile political situation, he did seem to have a good hold on the ship. Do you think that that's why he's staying and moving to the board rather than doing a cut and run?
Well, I mean, I think if I was in Tim Cook's position, I might be tempted to head for a beach. After giving decades of your life to corporate boardrooms, I think you're entitled to take some time off. But I also think it's for anybody. And this comes from a purely personal point of view. I have, you know, we've all seen people who've retired from high level positions, from lower level positions.
And it is, it's a tough transition anyway. I mean, when you're used to kind of being in charge and, you know, having a certain kind of a, having a certain routine and having a certain amount of influence, it can be kind of hard to just go to, you know, be told, well, now is your time to go and sit on the beach and enjoy your life and, you know,
you know kind of take a step back so i think you know it's not unusual for we've seen it happen it's not just tim cook you know we've seen it happen with lots of executives where when they transition out of that ceo role they move to like an executive chairman role so they're still involved in the business but you know they're taking a step back and then eventually you know after a couple of years they leave you know full-time they go and they go and they sit in the beach or they go and travel the world and they go and they find something else that that i suppose uh
gives joy to their life. That's not necessarily slaving away nine to five, six or seven days a week in some cases. I think, you know, having him there as an executive chairman, look, John Ternes is going to be the head of Apple. He is going to be dealing with all this stuff. He's going to be dealing with the tariffs, the macro kind of economic situation, the memory shortages, the
various crises that are inevitably going to hit. I mean, look, this is not going to be an easy job and it's not going to be an easy time. I mean, you know, just looking at what's happened in the past year alone, you know, it's been a tough time to kind of... It's been a tough time to be, I suppose, the top of a tech company. And that is in no way me saying, you know, poor tech executives.
I'm sure they cry into their pile of money every night. But I do think that... You know, John Turner is going to be the chief executive of Apple. He is going to have that role as much as Tim Cook did. And, you know, if Tim Cook is still part of the leadership team, that will be a support rather than, you know, a safety net.
And so as somebody who has, like you mentioned there, you've been over to the Apple HQ quite a few times. Last month, or maybe it was the month before now, we were down in Hollyhill in Cork meeting the Apple team there. There's no sense of panic from my read of it. What would your read of the wider Apple fandom, Apple workforce and tech ecosystem reaction to this news?
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